


Day 285

by Josh_the_Bard



Series: A Year in Kirkwall [285]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26981932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josh_the_Bard/pseuds/Josh_the_Bard
Series: A Year in Kirkwall [285]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589257
Kudos: 1





	Day 285

Lisa-Marie was surprised to find the barracks buzzing with activity. Something must have happened in the night. All the lieutenants were shouting and organizing the guards into teams. She was assigned to Conrad. He was good in a fight and had a good heart but… 

“Andraste watch over us. May the light of the Maker shield us from harm.”

But he was more pious than a Chantry sister. Why he didn’t join the templars instead of the guard she had no idea. Lisa-Marie had never cared enough to ask.

"What's going on," she asked Conrad.

"The demon response team is being deployed," he replied, he sounded somewhere between nervous and excited. 

"Had the been an attack?"

"By the grace of the Maker it doesn't seem like it," said Conrad. "Just a complaint the Templars aren't taking seriously. No one is saying as much, but I think the Captain is using this more like a drill than an actual emergency."

"Our chance to show we can give the Templars a run for their sovereigns," Lisa-Marie said with a nod. 

The guards were very efficient and moments later both guard were at the docks talking to some of the last people to see the missing man, a worker name Gomes, before his disappearance. His wife was convinced he was kidnapped by blood mages, but she had no proof. The templars assumed she was just being hysterical and Lisa-Marie was not convinced they were wrong. Many people were quick to blame magic for every bad thing that happened to them, but there was little doubt that her husband really was missing so it was a guard investigation regardless. 

Frustratingly, the workers who had been with Gomes the other day were in the Gallows and the templars were not letting the guards in or the workers out lest it interfere with the work they were doing. The only people they could ask were the dock workers. 

According to them, one of the men who got off the boat the other night had wandered off from the rest. The main group went to Lowtown, where Gomes lived, but one had taken a disused passage that led to Darktown. The dockworkers mentioned that some of their number had gone missing too, but they hadn't reported it because it was not unusual for one or two of their number to hire onto a ship without telling the boss. 

Lisa-Marie and Conrad followed the passage into Darktown and started asking around about Gomes. Most people claimed not to know anything or have heard anything. Lisa-Marie wondered why they even bothered -- no one in Darktown ever seemed to want to talk to the guards. They could start asking more aggressively but they would be picking suspects at random. 

Lisa-Marie tried to remember Cullen's lessons on how to spot the effects of magical crimes. Gomes seemed to have been acting strangely, which was a warning sign of mind control… or any number of mundane stressors. He could have come down here to gamble or fence goods stolen from the Circle. He could be buying poisons or seeking care at Anders’s clinic for a problem he was embarrassed to share with anyone. Or, as his wife said, he could be the victim of mages.

Lisa-Marie did notice certain patterns throughout the day. The residence would avoid them whenever possible but there were trends, currents of bodies moving through the streets. Some places Lisa-Marie knew to be Coterie controlled, others were Carta territory, but there were other places people avoided for no obvious reasons. Lisa Marie dragged Conrad in those directions, following the contrarian’s path.

Eventually they found themselves in an alley with no one in sight. If she strained her ears Lisa-Marie could hear the sounds of digging.

“What in the Maker’s name do you suppose that is?” Conrad asked.

“Only one way to find out.”

They followed the noise until they reached what looked like it was once a dead end but was now full of miners hacking away at the stone. The workers took no notice of their presence, even when they called out. There was a man laying by the entrance, polishing what could only be a mage’s staff. He gave a surprised yelp when he saw them and jumped to his feet.

“What’s going on here?” Lisa-Marie asked. Instead of responding, the man grabbed the worker nearest him and slit his throat without any ceremony. The man didn’t even resist. 

Conrad started chanting something, praying again probably. The mage drew what must have been all the man’s blood out of his body and sent it towards them. Lisa-Marie had always imagined she would be much better prepared if she ever had to actually face a blood mage, but she only stood there frozen in fear.

For a few moments, nothing changed. Conrad prayed and the mage cast a spell and then both men went silent.

“You are no templar,” the mage said. “How can you use the Litany of Adralla?”

“The Maker protects all his creation,” Conrad replied. You cannot claim our minds, surrender. 

For a moment it looked like the man was considering it but instead he cast a spell that sent both guards flying across the alley and crashing into the wall. The shock was enough to spur Lisa-Marie to action. She climbed unsteadily to her feet and pulled her shield into position. The workers ran out of the alley in a surprisingly orderly fashion.

Before Lisa-Marie reached the mage, a fire erupted on the ground between them. She had to stop short to avoid stepping in it. Cullen had warned that mages could lay magical traps on the ground but unfortunately that’s not what this was. Armes sprung from the fire followed by a turtle-like head. A rage demon.

“I got this one,” she called to Conrad. “Get the mage.”

Lisa-Marie gave ground to the demon, her shield ready to deflect any incoming fire. Cullen had said that rage demons would overextend themselves and attack too aggressively, as the name would imply. When they presented an opening try to shatter the smoldering core in the center of their body.

The demon almost immediately reared up the strike down on Lisa-Marie’s head but she held up her shield while swiping a wide arc with her sword. The blade passed through the center of the molten monster and she felt it catch briefly on something. When her sword came out, so to did a small black rock. 

Lisa-Mari backpedaled a few steps to get her bearings. The demon was shrinking fast but still advancing on her. With a few sharp cuts she removed both arms and then drove her blade through the beats head, pinning it to the ground. The demon kept drinking, the molten orange of its body turning black and grey. She left her sword in it just in case it wasn’t quite dead and went to help Conrad. 

She found him, just outside the alley, barely conscious and bleeding from several holes in his chest.

“Where’s the mage,” she asked.

“I got him good,” Conrad coughed. “But he got me back. He ran after the miners but I didn’t see where they went.”

Lisa-Marie cut her partner’s breastplate off of him and bandaged his wounds as best she could. He would die without magical healing soon and the mage was probably long gone anyway. She helped Conrad to his feet and helped him stumble down the streets to the clinic. If they found the mages once, hopefully they could do it again.


End file.
